1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to electronic systems and more particularly relates to a system and method for acquiring and uniformly quantifying vehicular damage information.
2. Description of the Related Art
Vehicular accidents are a common occurrence in many parts of the world and, unfortunately, vehicular accidents, even at low impact and separation velocities, are often accompanied by injury to vehicle occupants. It is often desirable to reconcile actual occupant injury reports to a potential for energy based on vehicular accident information. Trained engineers and accident reconstruction experts evaluate subject vehicles involved in a collision, and based on their training and experience, may be able to arrive at an estimated change in velocity (xe2x80x9cxcex94Vxe2x80x9d) for each the subject vehicles. The potential for injury can be derived from knowledge of the respective xcex94V""s for the subject vehicles.
However, involving trained engineers and accident reconstruction experts in all collisions, especially in the numerous low velocity collisions, is often not cost effective.
In one embodiment of the present invention, a computer system is utilized to provide a graphical user interface which allows nontechnical personnel to acquire vehicular damage information for use by the computer system. The damage information may take a variety of forms including component repair estimates, component replacement information, and visual damage observation. Thus, to facilitate vehicular damage entry, the graphical user interface facilitates entry of damage based on individual components. Individual component damage entry is well suited to the abilities of nontechnical personnel. The graphical user interface also, for example, facilitates entry of three dimensional vehicle crush damage using two dimensional generated displays. The computer system utilizes the acquired damage information to generate a likely xcex94V for each of the subject vehicles in an accident. Generating a likely xcex94V for each subject vehicle in the collision includes, for example, comparing the acquired subject vehicle damage information with information available from vehicular crash tests. To validate such comparisons, test and subject vehicle damage ratings are generated based on a uniform quantification of component-by-component damage.
In another embodiment of the present invention, a computer program product, encoded in computer readable media, includes first instructions, executable by a processor, for displaying a vehicle image corresponding to an actual vehicle, the vehicle image having selectable grid locations displayed over a portion of the vehicle image, second instructions, executable by the processor, for receiving grid selection input information to indicate vehicle damaged portions, and third instructions, executable by the processor, for receiving depth information corresponding to the indicated vehicle damaged portions.
In another embodiment of the present invention, a computer system includes a display device, a processor coupled to the display device, computer readable medium coupled to the processor, and computer code, encoded in the computer readable medium, for generating a graphical user interface, wherein the graphical user interface includes a first screen object representing a vehicle having selectable portions to indicate damage areas, a second screen object representing crush depth regions corresponding to the selectable damage area portions of the vehicle, and a third screen object to allow entry of crush depth information. In a further embodiment of the present invention, the computer system further includes third computer code, encoded in the computer readable medium and executable by the processor, to rate damage severity of each vehicle component according to a set of predetermined rules, fourth computer code, encoded in the computer readable medium and executable by the processor, to determine an overall damage rating for the vehicle based on rated damage to the vehicle components, and fifth computer code, encoded in the computer readable medium and executable by the processor, to compare the overall damage rating for the vehicle to a crash test vehicle having an overall rating based on component damage ratings in accordance with the set of rules.